The missing cockpit voice recorder of the PIA PK-8303 that crashed on May 22 has finally been found, the airline confirmed Thursday.

Ninety-seven passengers were killed and two survived after the plane crashed in Karachi’s Model Colony. The recorder was found from the debris and has been handed over to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board.

“The CVR records the communication happening in the cockpit,” explained PIA spokesperson Abdullah Hafeez Khan.

The debris was not removed from the Model Colony because we were waiting for the Airbus team to come and examine the site, he said. An 11-member team has flown in from France to help the government investigate the crash. “When the team allowed us to remove the debris, we found the CVR there,” he said.

The spokesperson said that the process of decoding the CVR can take at least three to four weeks, adding that he can’t confirm the exact time period. “This is a big development as we have found a key component in the investigation.”

The black box of any aircraft comprises of flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. The authorities had found the flight data recorder before and asked the residents of the Model Colony to help them find CVR. They are compulsory for all commercial flights and are kept in the plane’s tail.

The CVR has a chip inside that records all the communication in a cockpit and it is packaged in such a way that it will survive any crash. It can survive high impact and high temperatures, said the PIA spokesperson.

The Airbus team visited the crash site at 6am to collect evidence, Khan shared. They even visited the air traffic control tower, the runway and terminal. They are analysing everything. The team has asked for the debris to be moved to a terminal so that they can examine it in a controlled environment.